Big film moment to be happy, gay?

Gay couples just philander more donrsquot they Itrsquos a joke I often pose to my gay friends Only that when you throw such a stereotype to activistfilmmaker Sridhar Rangayan as I do hersquos going to take it more seriouslyRangayan says ldquoMonogamy comes at a price when you have so little to hold on to Heteronormative couples are often bound by marriage With gay couples howevermdashfrom society and until recently legal structuresmdashthere is every effort to pull them apartrdquoCouples that find it hard to stay together often stray together Rangayan somewhat submits This doesnrsquot apply to Rangayan whorsquos been with his filmmaking plus lifepartner Saagar Gupta for around 30 yearsThey recently released their feature film Kuch Sapney Apne Dreams Such As Ours into mainstream theatresmdashthe reason I bring up the gaycouple stereotype to himThe movie starts off with the lead character in Swedenmdashdeeply in love with his partner back in Mumbaimdashalmost giving in to tempting advances of his equally young besotted whiteboy admirerActivistfilmmaker Sridhar RangayanWell if this was a heterosexual couple the script would remain the same ldquoPeople stray periodrdquo Rangayan tells meAnd thatrsquos really how hersquos positioned his sweet sorted and simple moviemdashas any other Bollywoodlike songdance routine romantic drama involving squabbling parents and a crossdressing uncle transitioning into his trans identityKuch Sapney Apne received a 16 rating from the Indian Censor Board Given the theme this rating itself makes the movie a big moment for the LGBTQ communityThe film is a sequel to Rangayanrsquos Evening Shadows rated UA that also opened in select theatres in 2018 Thatrsquos the landmark year when the Supreme Court struck down the draconian Section 377 that had criminalised love between samesex couples hence legalised hate towards them for around 160 years among British colonies including IndiaBollywood in particular responded rather joyously to this move with at least three hardcore mainstream pictures starring Alist actors in gaylesbian rolesmdashSonam Kapoor in Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga 2019 Ayushmann Khurrana and Jeetendra Kumar in Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan 2020 Rajkummar Rao in Badhaai Do 2022Why even Vaani Kapoor Befikre in the transgender leadpart with Chandigarh Bane Aashiqui 2021 The latter film had great scope to cast a transgender actor Rangayan feels Which is what hersquos done with cameo of a transgender person Pradipta Ray in Kuch Sapney ApneRay who teaches animation at National Institute of Design plays an arts teacher in the film Technically any gender couldrsquove been cast for the partBut it is through the inclusion of nonbinary or trans actorscharacters that Rangayan is looking to subvert the mainstream And through his movies of course thatrsquos opened in 10 top Indian cities and that he hopes to push further into theatres in Tier II and Tier III townsThat said for LGBTQ cinema nothing quite matches the Malayalam superstar Mammootty as the gay politician in Jeo Babyrsquos KaathalmdashThe Core 2023 Some Muslim clerics apparently hounded him for itThe film was a major commercial success Baby had earlier writtendirected the strongly feminist The Great Indian Kitchen recently remade into Mrs in Hindi Maybe Bollywood producers shouldrsquove just signed Baby on for Kaathal itself Itrsquod save them money on remaking rightsThere are of course other major mainstream moments Rangayan cites for instance the Prime Video series Inside Edge where the gay cricketer comes out hugging his partner before a stadium crowdBut such representation on OTT platforms has by and large been reduced to ldquotickbox tokenism nowrdquo while guys like Rangayan whorsquove lived through those experiences ought to find some space on the main table as well ldquoItrsquos similar with other marginalised groups say Dalits toordquo Rangayan saysAlthough with Dalits perhaps the society is yet to catch up with the laws With LGBTQ communities on the other hand it took way longer for the law to catch up with ground realityI first met Rangayan back in 2012 Hersquos been championing LGBTQ rights ldquosince 1990rdquo when he ldquocame outrdquo joined Bombay Dost Indiarsquos first gay magazine also cofounded the hugely active Humsafar Trust along with Ashok Row KaviHe had me on the jury of Kashish Indiarsquos biggest international queer festival in Mumbai that hersquod founded few years earlier I was struck by thousands and thousands of viewers in an open safe space watching hundreds of films from 30 countries on just LGBTQ themes partying thereafter I recall actor Mona Ambegaonkar as cojurorShe plays the warm mother in Evening Shadows which is a movie on the young protagonist coming out to his parents that Rangayan says is ldquoalready dated as a subjectrdquo Sequel Kuch Sapney Apne looked closely is somewhat about gay marriageldquoOne step at a timerdquo as Rangayan puts it in his film too ldquoBeing married which Irsquod love to with my partner offers you simple things like inheritance rights once the partner is no more or signingoff authority in case of medical emergenciesrdquoMany Mumbai heterosexual couples we know get married just so they can buy a flat together Itrsquos not that hard to understand I hope sooner or later Supreme Court or Parliament does tooMayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass cultureHe tweets mayankw14 Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper